Note - the reason that the panel report above does not show the 5 cleared panels on the left and the 5 snow covered panels on the right is that apparently the panel map I turned into Enphase had some panels in the wrong position -- have to send them a new map.

Note - the reason that the panel report above does not show the 5 cleared panels on the left and the 5 snow covered panels on the right is that apparently the panel map I turned into Enphase had some panels in the wrong position -- have to send them a new map.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

For those who have been following Tom Sullivan's wind turbine project, Tom has made a major change.

He has replaced his Breezy wind turbine with this beautiful, restored 1930's Jacobs wind turbine. Tom replaced the Breezy because it was not proving to be a good match for the wind speeds at his site. The Jacobs starts up at much lower speeds, and is doing quite well.

Tom got involved in renewable energy projects several years ago when he built a large solar air heating collector for his hanger. He has since done several very well designed and built solar projects for heating his home, domestic hot water, and hot tub. He wrote up several of these projects for Build-It-Solar, and there is much to learn from them

He got so involved in solar projects that he has started a business to make aluminum heat absorber fins for solar water heating collectors. Tom's fins are very well made and efficient, and they save the labor of making your own fins for collectors. Tom has a new website that provides details on a number of solar projects that he and his customers/friends have done as well as ordering info on the fins.

Friday, November 12, 2010

A while back, we replaced all of our toilets with dual-flush units in order to save some water.

We used WaterRidge dual-flush toilets purchased from our local Costco. At the time, dual-flush toilets commanded some very high prices, and finding them at Costco for less than $200 seemed like quite find.

Our fist WaterRidge dual-flush toilet.

They have steadily been coming down in price, and the last time I was in Costco, they were selling the same model for $60 -- Amazing! So, if you have been holding off, now is the time.

Anyway, we have replaced all the toilets in the house with the new dual flush WaterRidge units, and the oldest one has been in service for about 3 years. No problems of any kind with any of them.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Its been one year since we put in our PV system, so I thought I would do a little report on how its performed, and what living with the system has been like.

The system is ten 215 watt panels and uses the Enphase micro-inverters with each panel getting its own grid-tied inverter.

Our ten panel, 2150 watt micro-inverter PV system.

In a nutsehll:

The system has been trouble free -- no repairs or problems.

The maintenance has been very minimal -- wash the dust off once in a while, brush off the snow, inspect the system for problems.

Performance has been about 8% above the PVWatts estimate for the year

The system produced 3320 KWH for the year -- about 8% more than PVWatts going in estimate.

Building the mounts and installing the PV panels.

Its interesting (maybe) to note that when we moved into the house our power consumption was up at around 1000 KWH per month -- near the US average. We pursed a bunch of conservation and efficiency measures which got our usage down to right around 500 KWH per month. All these changes are spelled out here in our Half Program. The cost of all the conservation measures was about $1,200 dollars.

We then added the PV system, which generates about 275 KWH per month, and takes our net consumption down toward 200 KWH per month. The PV system cost us about $10,000 ($6,500 after rebates). So, for us, the conservation measures were about ten times more cost effective in saving electricity than the PV system.
The message is do the conservation stuff first -- after you've gotten your consumption down, then think about a PV system to work on the remaining usage. This approach will save you a ton of money compared to just installing a PV system that is big enough to meet your current usage.

We are still working on conservation, and I think we can get down to less than 100 KWH a month -- maybe even down to a net zero for the year. A 100 KWH per month is a lot of electricity if used carefully -- as any off-grider will tell you.

DIYers will often build collectors that are quite wide (20+ ft) for solar space heating. The usual approach is to run a manifold along the top and bottom of the collector, and then connect the two manifolds with closely spaced risers that have fins attached to capture the sun's heat and transfer it into the water flowing through the risers.

It has been suggested by Alan Rushforth that it would save material and might also result in a more uniform water distribution to the risers if they were run horizontally instead of vertically. You end up with a much smaller number of much longer risers (hisers?). This reduces manifold material, and reduces the number of manifold to riser joints -- these joints are time consuming and expensive, so reducing the number of them would be a good gain.

In order to push this idea along a little further, I did a test by turning my old prototype copper tube/aluminum fin collector on its side so that the risers run horizontally and the manifolds are vertical.

In a nutshell, the test appears to show that at least for this small collector, the startup process, flow distribution, and drain back all work without problems -- I think it looks promising.
What do you think?

This idea has been discussed some in the Yahoo Simply Solar group and the Yahoo Solar Heat if you want to see a bit more on it -- these are both good groups for solar heating questions (and answers :).

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Starting in 2011 the FTC will require the yellow Energy Guide labels on new TV sets.
These are the same labels you now find in new dish washers, fridges, ...

The new Energy Guide label for TVs

I think this is a great development and will make it much easier for people who want to buy a low energy use and low carbon emissions TV to do so.

We recently went through the TV buying experience and found it to be very hard to get good data on how much power a given TV uses. TV power consumption varies over a huge range and its large enough to have a significant effect on household power use. I found the Energy Star label program for TVs to be very unhelpful -- I'd go so far as to say its misleading. In contrast to the Energy Star labels, these Energy Guide yellow labels give actual power consumption and should be very helpful.

If you are looking for a new TV, be sure to take energy use into account -- by looking carefully you can find a TV that performs very well and that uses substantially less power.

I'd like to see these Energy Guide labels on anything that uses more than a trivial amount of electricity -- I think that it would make it much easier for people to take energy use into account when buying.
A good next step would be to put them on those 24/7 power sucking TIVO type units.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Shawn shows in some detail how he uses a large surplus metal shipping container for general storage space and as a mounting structure for a large solar heating system.

This shows the collector bays mounted to the south side of the container.

Shawn mounted a large 9 bay solar water heating solar collector mounted directly to the south wall of the container. Water is pumped through the collectors via an insulated buried pipeline that extends from the house to the container. The heated water will be used for space heating in the house.

The homemade collector absorber plates being installed.

The collectors are homemade. The collector absorbers use the copper tube and aluminum fin design that is used in our $1K solar system. This is a closed loop system with antifreeze for freeze protection.

Shawn's blog is the Green Gate Guest House -- this is quite an interesting ongoing story about converting a 1935 barn into a modern and energy efficient home. Lots of entries on renewable energy projects, rain water harvesting, solar heating, ...

Monday, November 1, 2010

Kris's website covers the solar projects that he has tackled with good construction detail.

Kris's DIY collector design.

The projects cover solar space and water heating as well as a solar PV installation.

The thing that really sets Kris's projects apart is the very high level of workmanship that they show. Everything Kris does is carefully thought out and built with great precision and care. A good place to get inspiration for taking your workmanship up a notch.

Homemade heat storage tank and heat exchangers.

The website is in Dutch with some pages translated to English -- the Google Translation tool is your friend.

You have to look around a bit to find all the solar projects -- here are a few places to start: